Minority Business Enterprise Centers for Minority-Owned Businesses
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The Minority Business Development Agency has designed the Minority Business Enterprise Centers to provide clients with management and technical assistance, and the same time prohibit them from providing the clients with loans and financial assistance.

The MBDA is will enter into cooperative agreements with eligible applicants and can provide funds ranging from $155,000 to $400,375.

Institutions or organizations will be considered eligible to operate a Minority Business Enterprise Center if they are of the following:

a) Nonprofit organizations

b) For-profit firms

c) State and Local governments

d) Native American tribes

e) Educational institutions

The Catalog of Federal Assistance has outlined that the beneficiaries of the Minority Business Enterprise Centers include Americans, Native Americans, Aleuts, Asian Indians, Asian Pacific Americans, Eskimos, Hasidic Jews, Puerto Rican, and Spanish-Speaking Americans who owns minority businesses.

The Department of Commerce, the primary agency funding the MBEC program, is the country's principal agency responsible for ensuring the growth and development of the economy and technological advancements through vigilance in international and domestic trade policies.

In the fiscal years 2006 and 2007, the Minority Business Enterprise Centers was able to assist 4,254 clients and obtain a minimum of $614,269,965 in combined financings and contracts.

Minority Business Enterprise Centers for Minority-Owned Businesses
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About The Author Iola Bonggay is an editor of TopGovernmentGrants.com one the the most comprehensive Websites offering information on government grants and federal government programs. She also maintains Websites providing resources on environmental grants and grants for youth programs.

Additional Resources

category - Small Business Grants

Community Development Financial Institutions
Community Development Financial Institutions are basically financial institutions who possess the ability to provide credit and financial services to underserved industries and communities.

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Small Business Administration Background
The Small Business Administration was established in 1953. Since that time the agency has dispensed millions of dollars in loans and loan guarantees, contracts, consulting assistance and other programs for small business across the United States.

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Small Business Administration's Portable Assistance Program
The Small Business Administration has established the Portable Assistance Program wherein they seek to provide grants to Small Business Development Lead Centers that provide services to small businesses in an effort to increase the success of small business establishments and their viability in certain communities where economic hardship is apparent and is attributable to the impact of a major disaster.

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Department of Agriculture: Value Added Producer Grants
The Value-Added Producer Grants program is geared towards helping the Independent Producers of Agricultural Commodities, Agriculture Producer Groups, Farmer and Rancher Cooperatives, and Majority-Controlled Producer-Based Business Ventures in developing techniques that would create marketing opportunities and establish business plans involving viable marketing opportunities that involve the production of bio-based products from agricultural commodities.

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